Data, drones, and 3-D-printed hearts

It’s been a busy year for MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Researchers won the Turing Award, created groundbreaking algorithms to fix code and detect disease, and developed exciting new robots and artificial-intelligence systems. As 2015 comes to a close, here are a few highlights in seven key areas from the past 12 months: 1. DARPA Robotics Challenge In June a CSAIL-led robotics team finished mere inches away from winning the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, a U.S. Department of Defense-funded competition to develop a disaster-relief robot. The team programmed its 6-foot-tall, 400-pound Atlas robot to climb stairs, open doors, and drive a car, all while producing state-of-the-art planning and manipulation algorithms. 2. Machine-assisted medicine Researchers have developed numerous tools for the fields of health care and…